34°16′00″N 108°54′00″E / 34.2667°N 108.9000°E / 34.2667; 108.9000
120-563: Wei ( / w eɪ / ), known in historiography as the Northern Wei ( Chinese : 北魏 ; pinyin : Běi Wèi ), Tuoba Wei ( Chinese : 拓跋魏 ; pinyin : Tuòbá Wèi ), Yuan Wei ( Chinese : 元魏 ; pinyin : Yuán Wèi ) and Later Wei ( Chinese : 後魏 ; pinyin : Hòu Wèi ), was an imperial dynasty of China ruled by the Tuoba (Tabgach) clan of the Xianbei . The first of
240-547: A family . Investigation of the historical relationships among the varieties of Chinese is ongoing. Currently, most classifications posit 7 to 13 main regional groups based on phonetic developments from Middle Chinese , of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin with 66%, or around 800 million speakers, followed by Min (75 million, e.g. Southern Min ), Wu (74 million, e.g. Shanghainese ), and Yue (68 million, e.g. Cantonese ). These branches are unintelligible to each other, and many of their subgroups are unintelligible with
360-464: A nucleus that has a vowel (which can be a monophthong , diphthong , or even a triphthong in certain varieties), preceded by an onset (a single consonant , or consonant + glide ; a zero onset is also possible), and followed (optionally) by a coda consonant; a syllable also carries a tone . There are some instances where a vowel is not used as a nucleus. An example of this is in Cantonese, where
480-457: A subject–verb–object word order , and like many other languages of East Asia, makes frequent use of the topic–comment construction to form sentences. Chinese also has an extensive system of classifiers and measure words , another trait shared with neighboring languages such as Japanese and Korean. Other notable grammatical features common to all the spoken varieties of Chinese include the use of serial verb construction , pronoun dropping , and
600-505: A Chinese character is the morpheme, as characters represent the smallest grammatical units with individual meanings in the Chinese language. Estimates of the total number of Chinese words and lexicalized phrases vary greatly. The Hanyu Da Zidian , a compendium of Chinese characters, includes 54,678 head entries for characters, including oracle bone versions. The Zhonghua Zihai (1994) contains 85,568 head entries for character definitions and
720-497: A Chinese-style capital at Ye, Tuoba Gui sought to break the autonomy of the tribes. He reorganised the people into eight artificial tribes forcibly settled around the capital, which served as military units. He also removed the traditional tribal leaders. These reforms helped to change tribal loyalties and strengthen their loyalty to the dynasty. These tribes served as the Emperor's personal professional military caste which helped to sustain
840-595: A Shanghai resident may speak both Standard Chinese and Shanghainese ; if they grew up elsewhere, they are also likely fluent in the dialect of their home region. In addition to Standard Chinese, a majority of Taiwanese people also speak Taiwanese Hokkien (also called 台語 ; 'Taiwanese' ), Hakka , or an Austronesian language . A speaker in Taiwan may mix pronunciations and vocabulary from Standard Chinese and other languages of Taiwan in everyday speech. In part due to traditional cultural ties with Guangdong , Cantonese
960-568: A Southern Qi prince, to become emperor of the puppet state. A southern expedition was led by Prince Yuan Cheng of Wei and Chen Bozhi, a former Qi general. Until spring 505, Xinyang and Hanzhong were fallen to the Northern Wei. In 505, Emperor Wu began the Liang offensive. A strong army was quickly amassed under the general Wei Rui and caught the Wei by surprise, calling it the strongest army they have seen from
1080-556: A campaign and conquered the Northern Liang, hence unifying the north and bringing an end to the Sixteen Kingdoms period. War between Northern Wei and Han-ruled Liu Song dynasty broke out while the former had not yet unified northern China. Emperor Wu of Song while still a Jin dynasty general, had conquered both Southern Yan in 410 and Later Qin in 417, pushing Jin frontiers further north into Wei territories. He then usurped
1200-462: A central variety (i.e. prestige variety, such as Standard Mandarin), as the issue requires some careful handling when mutual intelligibility is inconsistent with language identity. The Chinese government's official Chinese designation for the major branches of Chinese is 方言 ; fāngyán ; 'regional speech', whereas the more closely related varieties within these are called 地点方言 ; 地點方言 ; dìdiǎn fāngyán ; 'local speech'. Because of
1320-597: A compromise between the pronunciations of different regions. The royal courts of the Ming and early Qing dynasties operated using a koiné language known as Guanhua , based on the Nanjing dialect of Mandarin. Standard Chinese is an official language of both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan), one of the four official languages of Singapore , and one of
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#17330852225841440-700: A corresponding increase in the number of homophones . As an example, the small Langenscheidt Pocket Chinese Dictionary lists six words that are commonly pronounced as shí in Standard Chinese: In modern spoken Mandarin, however, tremendous ambiguity would result if all of these words could be used as-is. The 20th century Yuen Ren Chao poem Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den exploits this, consisting of 92 characters all pronounced shi . As such, most of these words have been replaced in speech, if not in writing, with less ambiguous disyllabic compounds. Only
1560-498: A fief by thousands of members of the Han Chinese aristocratic Zhaojun Li clan under the leader of a cadet leader of the clan, Li Xianfu. Clan loyalties were extensively utilized by local magnates. Li Xianfu was appointed as zongzhu (宗主) (clan chief) by the clan collectively in spite of him not inheriting the officer and rank of his father which went to his elder brother. Local level order was controlled by Li Xiangu and other magnates and
1680-471: A household: the first was open land for crop cultivation (40 mu ) for each adult male in the household, and half those amounts for adult females which was returnable after the recipient reached a specific advanced age or died. The second was the land to support textile production (10 or 20 mu, with the same gender distribution principle as open land) in one of two forms, namely, "mulberry lands" in silk-producing areas, and "hemp lands" in regions where sericulture
1800-709: A long-lasting impact on later periods of Chinese history. The Jin dynasty had developed an alliance with the Tuoba against the Xiongnu state Han-Zhao . In 315, the Tuoba chief, Tuoba Yilu was granted the title of Prince of Dai . After his death, however, the Dai state stagnated, and with the Jin ejected from northern China, the Dai largely remained a partial ally and a partial tributary state to Later Zhao and Former Yan , finally falling to Former Qin in 376. After Former Qin's emperor Fu Jiān
1920-555: A massive invasion. Although initially successful, the campaign turned into a disaster. The Wei lured the Liu Song to cross the Yellow River, and then flanked them, destroying the Eastern army. As the Liu Song armies retreated, Emperor Taiwu ordered his troop to move south. The provinces south of the Yellow River were devastated by the Wei army. Only Huatai, a fortified city, held out against
2040-564: A millennium. The Four Commanderies of Han were established in northern Korea in the 1st century BCE but disintegrated in the following centuries. Chinese Buddhism spread over East Asia between the 2nd and 5th centuries CE, and with it the study of scriptures and literature in Literary Chinese. Later, strong central governments modeled on Chinese institutions were established in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, with Literary Chinese serving as
2160-538: A secure reconstruction of Proto-Sino-Tibetan, the higher-level structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, but has not been convincingly demonstrated. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty . As the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have repeatedly sought to promulgate
2280-503: A similar way to the use of Latin and Ancient Greek roots in European languages. Many new compounds, or new meanings for old phrases, were created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to name Western concepts and artifacts. These coinages, written in shared Chinese characters, have then been borrowed freely between languages. They have even been accepted into Chinese, a language usually resistant to loanwords, because their foreign origin
2400-610: A unified standard. The earliest examples of Old Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones dated to c. 1250 BCE , during the Late Shang . The next attested stage came from inscriptions on bronze artifacts dating to the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BCE), the Classic of Poetry and portions of the Book of Documents and I Ching . Scholars have attempted to reconstruct
2520-563: A variety of Yue from a small coastal area around Taishan, Guangdong . In parts of South China, the dialect of a major city may be only marginally intelligible to its neighbors. For example, Wuzhou and Taishan are located approximately 260 km (160 mi) and 190 km (120 mi) away from Guangzhou respectively, but the Yue variety spoken in Wuzhou is more similar to the Guangzhou dialect than
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#17330852225842640-421: A village and headed by one village elder (lizhang). Finally, over five villages, there was one ward elder (dangzhang). The three elders, appointed by the government, were responsible for detecting and re-registering population outside of state accounts, requisitioning corvee labor and taxes, and taking care of the poor and orphaned under their jurisdiction. This policy significantly bolstered the state's control over
2760-596: Is Taishanese. Wuzhou is located directly upstream from Guangzhou on the Pearl River , whereas Taishan is to Guangzhou's southwest, with the two cities separated by several river valleys. In parts of Fujian , the speech of some neighbouring counties or villages is mutually unintelligible. Local varieties of Chinese are conventionally classified into seven dialect groups, largely based on the different evolution of Middle Chinese voiced initials: Proportions of first-language speakers The classification of Li Rong , which
2880-485: Is called either 华语 ; 華語 ; Huáyǔ or 汉语 ; 漢語 ; Hànyǔ ). Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. The governments of both China and Taiwan intend for speakers of all Chinese speech varieties to use it as a common language of communication. Therefore, it is used in government agencies, in the media, and as a language of instruction in schools. Diglossia is common among Chinese speakers. For example,
3000-595: Is often described as a 'monosyllabic' language. However, this is only partially correct. It is largely accurate when describing Old and Middle Chinese; in Classical Chinese, around 90% of words consist of a single character that corresponds one-to-one with a morpheme , the smallest unit of meaning in a language. In modern varieties, it usually remains the case that morphemes are monosyllabic—in contrast, English has many multi-syllable morphemes, both bound and free , such as 'seven', 'elephant', 'para-' and '-able'. Some of
3120-445: Is only about an eighth as many as English. All varieties of spoken Chinese use tones to distinguish words. A few dialects of north China may have as few as three tones, while some dialects in south China have up to 6 or 12 tones, depending on how one counts. One exception from this is Shanghainese which has reduced the set of tones to a two-toned pitch accent system much like modern Japanese. A very common example used to illustrate
3240-668: Is specifically meant. However, when one of the above words forms part of a compound, the disambiguating syllable is generally dropped and the resulting word is still disyllabic. For example, 石 ; shí alone, and not 石头 ; 石頭 ; shítou , appears in compounds as meaning 'stone' such as 石膏 ; shígāo ; 'plaster', 石灰 ; shíhuī ; 'lime', 石窟 ; shíkū ; 'grotto', 石英 ; 'quartz', and 石油 ; shíyóu ; 'petroleum'. Although many single-syllable morphemes ( 字 ; zì ) can stand alone as individual words, they more often than not form multi-syllable compounds known as 词 ; 詞 ; cí , which more closely resembles
3360-484: Is the largest reference work based purely on character and its literary variants. The CC-CEDICT project (2010) contains 97,404 contemporary entries including idioms, technology terms, and names of political figures, businesses, and products. The 2009 version of the Webster's Digital Chinese Dictionary (WDCD), based on CC-CEDICT, contains over 84,000 entries. The most comprehensive pure linguistic Chinese-language dictionary,
3480-496: Is used as an everyday language in Hong Kong and Macau . The designation of various Chinese branches remains controversial. Some linguists and most ordinary Chinese people consider all the spoken varieties as one single language, as speakers share a common national identity and a common written form. Others instead argue that it is inappropriate to refer to major branches of Chinese such as Mandarin, Wu, and so on as "dialects" because
3600-497: Is used in education, media, formal speech, and everyday life—though Mandarin is increasingly taught in schools due to the mainland's growing influence. Historically, the Chinese language has spread to its neighbors through a variety of means. Northern Vietnam was incorporated into the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) in 111 BCE, marking the beginning of a period of Chinese control that ran almost continuously for
3720-540: Is used in the Language Atlas of China (1987), distinguishes three further groups: Some varieties remain unclassified, including the Danzhou dialect on Hainan , Waxianghua spoken in western Hunan , and Shaozhou Tuhua spoken in northern Guangdong . Standard Chinese is the standard language of China (where it is called 普通话 ; pǔtōnghuà ) and Taiwan, and one of the four official languages of Singapore (where it
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3840-428: Is very complex, with a large number of consonants and vowels, but they are probably not all distinguished in any single dialect. Most linguists now believe it represents a diasystem encompassing 6th-century northern and southern standards for reading the classics. The complex relationship between spoken and written Chinese is an example of diglossia : as spoken, Chinese varieties have evolved at different rates, while
3960-735: The Qieyun rime dictionary (601 CE), and a late period in the 10th century, reflected by rhyme tables such as the Yunjing constructed by ancient Chinese philologists as a guide to the Qieyun system. These works define phonological categories but with little hint of what sounds they represent. Linguists have identified these sounds by comparing the categories with pronunciations in modern varieties of Chinese , borrowed Chinese words in Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean, and transcription evidence. The resulting system
4080-610: The Chinese diaspora . Approximately 1.35 billion people, or 17% of the global population, speak a variety of Chinese as their first language . Chinese languages form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The spoken varieties of Chinese are usually considered by native speakers to be dialects of a single language. However, their lack of mutual intelligibility means they are sometimes considered to be separate languages in
4200-627: The Eastern Wei and the Western Wei dynasties under the rule of the same imperial house in 534–535, which were soon replaced by the Northern Qi and the Northern Zhou dynasties respectively. While the rule of Tuoba clan ended in the mid-6th century CE, its important policies, in particular the political recentralization reforms under Empress Dowager Feng and ethnic integration under Emperor Xiaowen, had
4320-756: The Hexi Corridor , led by the Juqu clan of Lushuihu ethnicity, submitted to Wei as a vassal after the Xia's demise. With the west pacified, Emperor Taiwu shifted his focus to the east by launching incessant attacks on the Chinese Northern Yan dynasty in Liaoning . After a large-scale invasion in 436, the Yan ruler, Feng Hong abandoned his territory to Wei as he fled to the neighbouring Goguryeo . Finally, in 439, Emperor Taiwu launched
4440-525: The Korean , Japanese and Vietnamese languages, and today comprise over half of their vocabularies. This massive influx led to changes in the phonological structure of the languages, contributing to the development of moraic structure in Japanese and the disruption of vowel harmony in Korean. Borrowed Chinese morphemes have been used extensively in all these languages to coin compound words for new concepts, in
4560-680: The May Fourth Movement beginning in 1919. After the fall of the Northern Song dynasty and subsequent reign of the Jurchen Jin and Mongol Yuan dynasties in northern China, a common speech (now called Old Mandarin ) developed based on the dialects of the North China Plain around the capital. The 1324 Zhongyuan Yinyun was a dictionary that codified the rhyming conventions of new sanqu verse form in this language. Together with
4680-579: The National Language Unification Commission finally settled on the Beijing dialect in 1932. The People's Republic founded in 1949 retained this standard but renamed it 普通话 ; 普通話 ; pǔtōnghuà ; 'common speech'. The national language is now used in education, the media, and formal situations in both mainland China and Taiwan. In Hong Kong and Macau , Cantonese is the dominant spoken language due to cultural influence from Guangdong immigrants and colonial-era policies, and
4800-450: The Northern dynasties , it ruled northern China from 386 to 535 during the period of the Northern and Southern dynasties . Described as "part of an era of political turbulence and intense social and cultural change", the Northern Wei dynasty is particularly noted for unifying northern China in 439, bringing an end to the chaotic Sixteen Kingdoms period, and strengthening imperial control over
4920-632: The Ordos and Guanzhong regions in the west. By the following year, the Wei had taken the Xia capital, Tongwancheng and a substantial portion of their territory. The Xia could no longer pose a threat to Wei, though they still managed to annex Wei's ally, the Western Qin dynasty in the Longxi . In 431, the last Xia emperor, Helian Ding was captured and handed over to Wei by the Tuyuhun . The Northern Liang dynasty in
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5040-550: The Tiele tribes and held a large territory in the northern steppe. That same year, he declared himself Qiudoufa Khagan (丘豆伐可汗), and for the rest of Northern Wei's existence, the Rouran Khaganate was a recurring problem to the Wei on their northern borders. In 423, Emperor Taiwu of Northern Wei ascended the throne with ambitions to reunify northern China. In 426, he began a war with the Xiongnu -led Hu Xia dynasty , which controlled
5160-620: The Western Yan in Shanxi . Wei continued hostilities even after Western Yan fell in 394, and in 395, the Later Yan emperor, Murong Chui , sent his Crown Prince, Murong Bao , with a massive army to lead a punitive expedition against Wei. However, at the Battle of Canhe Slope , Tuoba Gui inflicted the Later Yan army a heavy defeat. In 396, Murong Chui personally led another campaign against Wei, but though he
5280-568: The Xianbei Tuoba royal family in the 480s. More than fifty percent of Tuoba Xianbei princesses of the Northern Wei were married to southern Han Chinese men from the imperial families and aristocrats from southern China of the Southern dynasties who defected and moved north to join the Northern Wei. Some Han Chinese exiled royalty fled from southern China and defected to the Xianbei. Several daughters of
5400-423: The oracle bone inscriptions created during the Shang dynasty c. 1250 BCE . The phonetic categories of Old Chinese can be reconstructed from the rhymes of ancient poetry. During the Northern and Southern period , Middle Chinese went through several sound changes and split into several varieties following prolonged geographic and political separation. The Qieyun , a rime dictionary , recorded
5520-591: The phonology of Old Chinese by comparing later varieties of Chinese with the rhyming practice of the Classic of Poetry and the phonetic elements found in the majority of Chinese characters. Although many of the finer details remain unclear, most scholars agree that Old Chinese differs from Middle Chinese in lacking retroflex and palatal obstruents but having initial consonant clusters of some sort, and in having voiceless nasals and liquids. Most recent reconstructions also describe an atonal language with consonant clusters at
5640-440: The "equal-field landholding system", and the "three-elder system". In the new "equal-filed system" ( juntian zhi ) unveiled in 485, the state redistributed abandoned or uncultivated land to commoner subjects attached with obligations of tax duty in the forms of grain, cloth, and labor service. In principle, each household was entitled to lands proportional to its labor power. Specifically, two types of land with tenure were assigned to
5760-712: The 12-volume Hanyu Da Cidian , records more than 23,000 head Chinese characters and gives over 370,000 definitions. The 1999 revised Cihai , a multi-volume encyclopedic dictionary reference work, gives 122,836 vocabulary entry definitions under 19,485 Chinese characters, including proper names, phrases, and common zoological, geographical, sociological, scientific, and technical terms. The 2016 edition of Xiandai Hanyu Cidian , an authoritative one-volume dictionary on modern standard Chinese language as used in mainland China, has 13,000 head characters and defines 70,000 words. Tuoba Shiyijian Tuoba Shiyiqian ( Chinese : 拓跋什翼犍 ; pinyin : Tuòbá Shíyìqián ; 320–376)
5880-591: The Buddha as wicked and as anti-stability and anti-family. Anti Buddhism was the position of Kou Qianzhi. There was no ban on the Celestial Masters despite the nonfullfilment of Cui Hao and Kou Qianzhi's agenda in their anti-Buddhist campaign. Cui Zhen's wife Han Farong was buried in a Datong located grave. To resist the threats posed by the Rourans , Northern Wei emperors started to embark on building its own Great Wall ,
6000-551: The Han Chinese Jin prince Sima Chuzhi ( 司馬楚之 ) as a refugee. A Northern Wei Princess married Sima Chuzhi, giving birth to Sima Jinlong ( 司馬金龍 ). Northern Liang Xiongnu King Juqu Mujian 's daughter married Sima Jinlong. The Northern Wei's Eight Noble Xianbei surnames ( 八大贵族 ) were the Buliugu (步六孤), Helai (賀賴), Dugu ( 獨孤 ), Helou (賀樓), Huniu (忽忸), Qiumu (丘穆), Gexi (紇奚), and Yuchi ( 尉遲 ). They adopted Chinese last names. Kongzi
6120-568: The Jin throne and created the Song dynasty. After hearing the death of the Song emperor Wu in 422, Wei's emperor Mingyuan broke off relations with Song and sent troops to invade its southern neighbor. His plan is to seize three major cities south of the Yellow River: Luoyang, Hulao, and Huatai. Sizhou (司州, central Henan) and Yanzhou (兗州, modern western Shandong) and most cities in Song's Qing Province (青州, modern central and eastern Shandong) fell to
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#17330852225846240-555: The Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet . English words of Chinese origin include tea from Hokkien 茶 ( tê ), dim sum from Cantonese 點心 ( dim2 sam1 ), and kumquat from Cantonese 金橘 ( gam1 gwat1 ). The sinologist Jerry Norman has estimated that there are hundreds of mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinese. These varieties form a dialect continuum , in which differences in speech generally become more pronounced as distances increase, though
6360-434: The Liu Song emperor Emperor Ming, surrendered these territories to rival Northern Wei. Northern Wei forces quickly took up defense position against the attacking forces sent by Emperor Ming. With Liu Song forces unable to siege Pengcheng effectively, they were forced to withdraw in spring 467, making these populous provinces lost to the Northern Wei. In 479, Xiao Daocheng usurped the throne of Liu Song and became emperor of
6480-586: The Mingyuan Emperor. Kongzi was honored extensively by Tuoba Hong, the Xiaowen Emperor. A fief of 100 households and the rank of (崇聖侯) Marquis who worships the sage was bestowed upon a Confucius descendant, Yan Hui 's lineage had 2 of its scions and Confucius's lineage had 4 of its scions who had ranks bestowed on them in Shandong in 495 and a fief of ten households and rank of (崇聖大夫) Grandee who venerates
6600-621: The Northern Wei Xianbei monarchs had to rely on them. The Northern Wei gave them title of governors officially in their fiefs. Chinese language Chinese ( simplified Chinese : 汉语 ; traditional Chinese : 漢語 ; pinyin : Hànyǔ ; lit. ' Han language' or 中文 ; Zhōngwén ; 'Chinese writing') is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in China , as well as by various communities of
6720-491: The Northern Wei general Yuan Faseng (元法僧) surrendered the key city of Pengcheng (彭城, in modern Xuzhou, Jiangsu) to Liang. However, in summer 525, Emperor Wu's son Prince Xiao Zong (蕭綜), grew suspicions that he was actually the son of Southern Qi's emperor Xiao Baojuan (because his mother Consort Wu was formerly Xiao Baojuan's concubine and had given birth to him only seven months after she became Emperor Wu's concubine), surrendered Pengcheng to Northern Wei, ending Liang's advances in
6840-494: The Northern Wei state. Chinese influence accelerated during the capital's move to Luoyang in 494 and Emperor Xiaowen continued this by establishing a policy of systematic sinicization that was continued by his successors. Xianbei traditions were largely abandoned. The royal family took the sinicization a step further by changing their family name to Yuan. Marriages to Chinese families were encouraged. With this, Buddhist temples started appearing everywhere, displacing Taoism as
6960-462: The Northern Wei was internally unstable and allied with the stronger Xianbei-led Later Yan dynasty that ruled most of present-day Hebei and Liaoning . As Wei grew in power by subjugating neighbouring tribes such as the Tiefu and Rouran , their alliance came to an end in 391 when Tuoba Gui refused to send more tribute after Yan detained his brother at their capital, and the Wei re-aligned themselves with
7080-458: The Prince of Wei—intending to have him lay claim to the Northern Wei throne and, if successful, become a Liang vassal. He commissioned his general Chen Qingzhi (陳慶之) with an army to escort Yuan Hao back to Northern Wei. Despite the small size of Chen's army, he won battle after battle, and in spring 529, after Chen captured Suiyang (modern Shangqiu). Yuan Hao, with Emperor Wu's approve, proclaimed himself
7200-470: The Southern dynasties in a hundred years. In spring 506, Wei Rui was able to capture Hefei . In fall 506, Wei Rui attacked the Northern Wei army stationed at Luokou for nearly a year without advancing. However, when Wei army gathered, Xiao Hong Prince of Linchuan, the Liang commander and younger brother of Emperor Wu, escaped in fear, causing his army to collapse without a battle. Northern Wei forces next attacked
7320-496: The Wei army. The Liu Song general Tan Daoji commanded an army to try to save those cities and were able to hold Dongyang (東陽, in modern Qingzhou, Shandong), the capital of Qingzhou province. Northern Wei troops were eventually forced to withdraw after food supplies ran out. Wei forces also stalled in their siege of Hulao, defended by the capable Liu Song general Mao Dezu (毛德祖), but were meanwhile able to capture Luoyang and Xuchang (許昌, in modern Xuchang, Henan) in spring 423, cutting off
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#17330852225847440-507: The Wei. Wei troops retreated in January 451, however, the economic damage to the Song was immense. Emperor Wen made another attempt to conquer Northern Wei in 452, but failed again. On returning to the capital, he was assassinated by the heir apparent, Liu Shao. In 466, Liu Zixun waged an unsuccessful civil war against the Emperor Ming of Liu Song. The governors of Xu Province (徐州) and Yan Province (兗州, modern western Shandong), who earlier pleaded allegiance to Liu Zixun, in fear of reprisal from
7560-465: The Xianbei Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei were married to Han Chinese elites, the Liu Song royal Liu Hui 劉輝), married Princess Lanling (蘭陵公主) of the Northern Wei, Princess Huayang (華陽公主) to Sima Fei (司馬朏), a descendant of Jin dynasty (266–420) royalty, Emperor Xiaozhuang of Northern Wei 's sisters, the Shouyang Princess, was wedded to the Liang dynasty ruler Emperor Wu of Liang 's son Xiao Zong 蕭綜 . One of Emperor Xiaowu of Northern Wei 's sisters
7680-560: The Xianbei emperor. The Xianbei emperor also turned their own Xianbei nomad warriors into a hereditary military caste and extinguish their tribal loyalties. To the consternation of the Xianbei nobles, Han Chinese aristocrats started to be appointed to government positions by the Northern Wei emperors when the Central Plains population regrew in the middle of the 5th century. Han Chinese commoners started pledging their allegiance as buqu (部曲) (armed retainers) to elite Han Chinese aristocratic magnates in their wubao (塢堡) (fortified settlements) when
7800-599: The Yellow River. The two walls of Northern Wei formed the basis of the double-layered Xuanfu – Datong wall system that protected Beijing a thousand years later during the Ming dynasty. Local society in northern China was not governed by civil bureaucrats but by military clientage during the reign of the Northern Wei Xianbei emperors, with the local Han Chinese aristocratic families jointly ruling and controlling power with them. The Han Chinese aristocrat families ruled over their private fiefs (home jurisdictions) with large military authority and civil authority as entrusted to them by
7920-404: The borders, against both Eastern Wei and Western Wei, for several years. Early in Northern Wei history, the state inherited a number of traditions from its initial history as a Xianbei tribe, and some of the more unusual ones, from a traditional Chinese standpoint, were: As Sinicization of the Northern Wei state progressed, these customs and traditions were gradually abandoned. After building
8040-413: The common people. The reforms of Empress Dowager Feng boosted agricultural production and tax receipts on a long-term basis, and broke the economic power of local aristocrats who sheltered residents under their control living in fortified villages that dotted the rural landscape of the North from taxation. The Northern Wei dynasty had doubled the registered population to more than 5 million households since
8160-410: The construction of the Yungang Grottoes near Datong during the mid-to-late fifth century, and towards the latter part of the dynasty, the Longmen Grottoes outside the later capital city of Luoyang, in which more than 30,000 Buddhist images from the time of this dynasty have been found. Towards the end of the Northern Wei dynasty there was significant internal dissension, resulting in a split into
8280-402: The courts in Datong played a great part in this process. He introduced Han Chinese administrative methods and penal codes in the Northern Wei state, as well as creating a Taoist theocracy that lasted until 450. The attraction of Han Chinese products, the royal court's taste for luxury, the prestige of Chinese culture at the time, and Taoism were all factors in the growing Chinese influence in
8400-399: The different spoken dialects varies, but in general, there has been a tendency to a reduction in sounds from Middle Chinese. The Mandarin dialects in particular have experienced a dramatic decrease in sounds and so have far more polysyllabic words than most other spoken varieties. The total number of syllables in some varieties is therefore only about a thousand, including tonal variation, which
8520-484: The difficulties involved in determining the difference between language and dialect, other terms have been proposed. These include topolect , lect , vernacular , regional , and variety . Syllables in the Chinese languages have some unique characteristics. They are tightly related to the morphology and also to the characters of the writing system, and phonologically they are structured according to fixed rules. The structure of each syllable consists of
8640-467: The dynasty against any threats. After securing Xianbei hegemony in the hinterland of China, the North Wei regime, under the rule of Empress Dowager Feng (438-490; also known as Empress Dowager Wenming) implemented a package of reforms in 485-486 AD, greatly solidifying its fiscal foundations and strengthening state penetration to the local society. This reform introduced two far-reaching policies, namely,
8760-405: The dynasty's control over the local population in the Han hinterland. Emperor Xiaowen also introduced changes that eventually led to the dynasty moving its capital from Datong to Luoyang , in 494. The Tuoba adopted the surname Yuan (元) as a part of systematic sinicization . Many antiques and art works, both Taoist art and Buddhist art , from this period have survived. It was the time of
8880-522: The emperor of Northern Wei. In summer 529, troops under Erzhu unable to stand up to Chen Qingzhi, forcing Emperor Xiaozhuang of Northern Wei to flee the capital Luoyang. After capturing Luoyang, Yuan Hao secretly wanted to rebel against Liang: when Chen Qingzhi requested Emperor Wu to send reinforcements, Yuan Hao sent Emperor Wu a submission advising against it, and Emperor Wu, believing Yuan Hao, did not send additional troops. Soon, Erzhu and Emperor Xiaozhuang counterattacked, and Luoyang fell. Yuan Hao fled and
9000-464: The emperor's unwillingness to advance past this line caused the destruction of the empire's ally, Xia , by the Wei. The emperor was to repeat this mistake as several northern states such as Northern Yan who had offered to ally with Liu Song against Wei were declined, eventually leading to Wei's unification of the North in 439. In 450, Emperor Wen attempted to destroy the Northern Wei by himself and launched
9120-566: The end of the syllable, developing into tone distinctions in Middle Chinese. Several derivational affixes have also been identified, but the language lacks inflection , and indicated grammatical relationships using word order and grammatical particles . Middle Chinese was the language used during Northern and Southern dynasties and the Sui , Tang , and Song dynasties (6th–10th centuries CE). It can be divided into an early period, reflected by
9240-413: The first one, 十 , normally appears in monosyllabic form in spoken Mandarin; the rest are normally used in the polysyllabic forms of respectively. In each, the homophone was disambiguated by the addition of another morpheme, typically either a near-synonym or some sort of generic word (e.g. 'head', 'thing'), the purpose of which is to indicate which of the possible meanings of the other, homophonic syllable
9360-519: The first since the Han dynasty. In 423, a defence line over 2,000 li (1,080 kilometres (670 mi)) long was built; its path roughly followed the old Zhao wall from Chicheng County in Hebei Province to Wuyuan County, Inner Mongolia . In 446, 100,000 men were put to work building an inner wall from Yanqing , passing south of the Wei capital Pingcheng , and ending up near Pingguan on the eastern bank of
9480-491: The form of a word), to indicate a word's function within a sentence. In other words, Chinese has very few grammatical inflections —it possesses no tenses , no voices , no grammatical number , and only a few articles . They make heavy use of grammatical particles to indicate aspect and mood . In Mandarin, this involves the use of particles such as 了 ; le ; ' PFV ', 还 ; 還 ; hái ; 'still', and 已经 ; 已經 ; yǐjīng ; 'already'. Chinese has
9600-502: The fortress of Zhongli (鍾離, in modern Bengbu ), However, they were defeated by a Liang army commanded by Wei Rui and Cao Jingzong , effectively ending the war. After the Battle of Zhongli , there would continue to be border battles from time to time, but no large-scale war for years. In 524, while Northern Wei is plagued by agrarian rebellions to the north and west, Emperor Wu launched a number of attacks on Wei's southern territory. Liang forces largely met little resistance. In spring 525,
9720-599: The government of the People's Republic of China, with Singapore officially adopting them in 1976. Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and among Chinese-speaking communities overseas . Linguists classify all varieties of Chinese as part of the Sino-Tibetan language family , together with Burmese , Tibetan and many other languages spoken in the Himalayas and the Southeast Asian Massif . Although
9840-614: The imperial family finally forced the Later Yan to evacuate to Liaoning, while a branch in the south founded the Southern Yan in 398 before escaping to Shandong . With a strong foothold on the Central Plains and the Yan state split into two, Northern Wei became a regional power in northeastern China, competing with the Qiang -led Later Qin dynasty to the west and the Eastern Jin dynasty to
9960-581: The language of administration and scholarship, a position it would retain until the late 19th century in Korea and (to a lesser extent) Japan, and the early 20th century in Vietnam. Scholars from different lands could communicate, albeit only in writing, using Literary Chinese. Although they used Chinese solely for written communication, each country had its own tradition of reading texts aloud using what are known as Sino-Xenic pronunciations . Chinese words with these pronunciations were also extensively imported into
10080-516: The late 19th century. Today Japanese is written with a composite script using both Chinese characters called kanji , and kana. Korean is written exclusively with hangul in North Korea, although knowledge of the supplementary Chinese characters called hanja is still required, and hanja are increasingly rarely used in South Korea. As a result of its historical colonization by France, Vietnamese now uses
10200-635: The local communities relied on the magnates to direct their defense after the 311 sack of Luoyang . Oaths were pledged in alliances between paramount commanders who joined their fortress villages together in leagues. The magnates retained the services and fealty of their thrall retainers after the fighting was over. Subject to the emperor was overtaken by the concept of village membership. Magnates had both unrelated bondsmen, private clients and fellow clan kinsmen in their armies. 50 to 60 square leagues of farmland in Hebei's southwest Taihang mountain foothills were taken as
10320-455: The more conservative modern varieties, usually found in the south, have largely monosyllabic words , especially with basic vocabulary. However, most nouns, adjectives, and verbs in modern Mandarin are disyllabic. A significant cause of this is phonetic erosion : sound changes over time have steadily reduced the number of possible syllables in the language's inventory. In modern Mandarin, there are only around 1,200 possible syllables, including
10440-425: The mutual unintelligibility between them is too great. However, calling major Chinese branches "languages" would also be wrong under the same criterion, since a branch such as Wu, itself contains many mutually unintelligible varieties, and could not be properly called a single language. There are also viewpoints pointing out that linguists often ignore mutual intelligibility when varieties share intelligibility with
10560-583: The nasal sonorant consonants /m/ and /ŋ/ can stand alone as their own syllable. In Mandarin much more than in other spoken varieties, most syllables tend to be open syllables, meaning they have no coda (assuming that a final glide is not analyzed as a coda), but syllables that do have codas are restricted to nasals /m/ , /n/ , /ŋ/ , the retroflex approximant /ɻ/ , and voiceless stops /p/ , /t/ , /k/ , or /ʔ/ . Some varieties allow most of these codas, whereas others, such as Standard Chinese, are limited to only /n/ , /ŋ/ , and /ɻ/ . The number of sounds in
10680-436: The new Southern Qi dynasty. Upon hearing the news, the Northern Wei emperor prepared to invade under the pretext of installing Liu Chang, son of Emperor Wen of Song who had been in exile in Wei since 465 AD. Wei troops began to attack Shouyang but could not take the city. The Southern Qi began to fortify their capital, Jiankang in order to prevent further Wei raids. Multiple sieges and skirmishes were fought until 481 but
10800-512: The northeast, although in summer 526, Shouyang fell to Liang troops after Emperor Wu successfully reemployed the damming strategy. For the next several years, Liang continued to make minor gains on the borders with Northern Wei. In 528, after a coup in Northern Wei, with the warlord Erzhu Rong overthrowing Empress Dowager Hu, a number of Northern Wei officials, including Yuan Yue, Yuan Yu, and Yuan Hao fled and surrendered territories they controlled to Liang. In winter 528, Emperor Wu created Yuan Hao
10920-538: The other varieties within the same branch (e.g. Southern Min). There are, however, transitional areas where varieties from different branches share enough features for some limited intelligibility, including New Xiang with Southwestern Mandarin , Xuanzhou Wu Chinese with Lower Yangtze Mandarin , Jin with Central Plains Mandarin and certain divergent dialects of Hakka with Gan . All varieties of Chinese are tonal at least to some degree, and are largely analytic . The earliest attested written Chinese consists of
11040-404: The path of any Liu Song relief force for Hulao. In summer 423, Hulao fell. The campaign then ceased, with Northern Wei now in control of much of modern Henan and western Shandong. Emperor Wen of Song continued the northern campaigns of his father. In 430, under the able general Dao Yanzhi, Liu Song recovered the four cities of Luoyang, Hulao, Huatai and Qiao'ao south of the Yellow River. However,
11160-404: The rate of change varies immensely. Generally, mountainous South China exhibits more linguistic diversity than the North China Plain . Until the late 20th century, Chinese emigrants to Southeast Asia and North America came from southeast coastal areas, where Min, Hakka, and Yue dialects were spoken. Specifically, most Chinese immigrants to North America until the mid-20th century spoke Taishanese ,
11280-532: The reforms. These institutional infrastructures erected by the Northern Wei state survived the fall of the dynasty and paved the way for China's eventual unification in 589 AD under the Sui dynasty. The Northern Wei used the previous dynasties' Nine-rank system as a way of assigning official positions to wealthy and prestigious Han Chinese families, according to hereditary rank. Officials were also given considerable autonomy, such as appointing subordinate officials. During
11400-421: The reign of Emperor Daowu (386–409), the total number of deported people from the regions east of Taihangshan (the former Later Yan territory) to Datong was estimated to be around 460,000. Deportations typically took place once a new piece of territory had been conquered. As the Northern Wei state grew, the emperors' desire for Han Chinese institutions and advisors grew. Cui Hao (381–450), an advisor at
11520-552: The related subject dropping . Although the grammars of the spoken varieties share many traits, they do possess differences. The entire Chinese character corpus since antiquity comprises well over 50,000 characters, of which only roughly 10,000 are in use and only about 3,000 are frequently used in Chinese media and newspapers. However, Chinese characters should not be confused with Chinese words. Because most Chinese words are made up of two or more characters, there are many more Chinese words than characters. A more accurate equivalent for
11640-509: The relationship was first proposed in the early 19th century and is now broadly accepted, reconstruction of Sino-Tibetan is much less developed than that of families such as Indo-European or Austroasiatic . Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, and the effects of language contact. In addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach and are often also sensitive border zones. Without
11760-492: The rural landscape via reforms in 485. This was also a period of introduced foreign ideas, such as Buddhism , which became firmly established. The Northern Wei was referred to as "Plaited Barbarians" (索虜; suǒlǔ ) by writers of the Southern dynasties , who considered themselves the true upholders of Chinese culture. During the Taihe period (477–499), Empress Dowager Feng and Emperor Xiaowen instituted sweeping reforms that deepened
11880-456: The sage was bestowed on Kong Sheng (孔乘) who was Confucius's scion in the 28th generation in 472 by Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei. An anti-Buddhist plan was concocted by the Celestial Masters under Kou Qianzhi along with Cui Hao under the Taiwu Emperor. The Celestial Masters of the north urged the persecution of Buddhists under the Taiwu Emperor in the Northern Wei, attacking Buddhism and
12000-505: The six official languages of the United Nations . Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin and was first officially adopted in the 1930s. The language is written primarily using a logography of Chinese characters , largely shared by readers who may otherwise speak mutually unintelligible varieties. Since the 1950s, the use of simplified characters has been promoted by
12120-557: The slightly later Menggu Ziyun , this dictionary describes a language with many of the features characteristic of modern Mandarin dialects. Up to the early 20th century, most Chinese people only spoke their local variety. Thus, as a practical measure, officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties carried out the administration of the empire using a common language based on Mandarin varieties , known as 官话 ; 官話 ; Guānhuà ; 'language of officials'. For most of this period, this language
12240-543: The south for a time. In 398, Tuoba Gui relocated the capital to Pingcheng , and in 399, he elevated his title to Emperor of Wei. After Tuoba Gui was assassinated in 409, his son, Tuoba Si (Emperor Mingyuan of Northern Wei) took the throne and continued his father's efforts to consolidate their state. Earlier, among the tribes that the Wei had subjugated were the Rouran . In 394, a branch of them, led by Yujiulü Shelun rebelled and fled westward. By 402, Shelun had conquered many of
12360-423: The state religion. The temples were often created to appear extremely lavish and extravagant on the outside of the temples. Also from 460 onwards the emperors started erecting huge statues of the Buddha carved near their capital Pingcheng which declared the emperors as the representatives of the Buddha and the legitimate rulers of China. The Northern Wei started to arrange for Han Chinese elites to marry daughters of
12480-563: The tonal distinctions, compared with about 5,000 in Vietnamese (still a largely monosyllabic language), and over 8,000 in English. Most modern varieties tend to form new words through polysyllabic compounds . In some cases, monosyllabic words have become disyllabic formed from different characters without the use of compounding, as in 窟窿 ; kūlong from 孔 ; kǒng ; this is especially common in Jin varieties. This phonological collapse has led to
12600-547: The traditional Western notion of a word. A Chinese cí can consist of more than one character–morpheme, usually two, but there can be three or more. Examples of Chinese words of more than two syllables include 汉堡包 ; 漢堡包 ; hànbǎobāo ; 'hamburger', 守门员 ; 守門員 ; shǒuményuán ; 'goalkeeper', and 电子邮件 ; 電子郵件 ; diànzǐyóujiàn ; 'e-mail'. All varieties of modern Chinese are analytic languages : they depend on syntax (word order and sentence structure), rather than inflectional morphology (changes in
12720-512: The use of tones in Chinese is the application of the four tones of Standard Chinese, along with the neutral tone, to the syllable ma . The tones are exemplified by the following five Chinese words: In contrast, Standard Cantonese has six tones. Historically, finals that end in a stop consonant were considered to be " checked tones " and thus counted separately for a total of nine tones. However, they are considered to be duplicates in modern linguistics and are no longer counted as such: Chinese
12840-630: The war was without any major campaign. A peace treaty was signed in 490 with the Emperor Wu . In 502, the Southern Qi general Xiao Yan toppled the emperor Xiao Baojuan after waging a three-year civil war against him. Xiao Yan enthroned in Jiankang to become Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty . As early as 503 AD, the Northern Wei was hoping to restore the Southern Qi throne. Their plan was to install Xiao Baoyin ,
12960-452: The words in newspapers, and 60% of the words in science magazines. Vietnam, Korea, and Japan each developed writing systems for their own languages, initially based on Chinese characters , but later replaced with the hangul alphabet for Korean and supplemented with kana syllabaries for Japanese, while Vietnamese continued to be written with the complex chữ Nôm script. However, these were limited to popular literature until
13080-508: The written language used throughout China changed comparatively little, crystallizing into a prestige form known as Classical or Literary Chinese . Literature written distinctly in the Classical form began to emerge during the Spring and Autumn period . Its use in writing remained nearly universal until the late 19th century, culminating with the widespread adoption of written vernacular Chinese with
13200-453: Was a koiné based on dialects spoken in the Nanjing area, though not identical to any single dialect. By the middle of the 19th century, the Beijing dialect had become dominant and was essential for any business with the imperial court. In the 1930s, a standard national language ( 国语 ; 國語 ; Guóyǔ ), was adopted. After much dispute between proponents of northern and southern dialects and an abortive attempt at an artificial pronunciation,
13320-481: Was defeated by Jin forces at the Battle of Fei River in his failed bid to unify China, the Former Qin state began to break apart. By 386, Tuoba Gui (Emperor Daowu of Northern Wei), the son (or grandson) of Tuoba Shiyiqian (the last Prince of Dai), reasserted Tuoba independence initially as the Prince of Dai. Later he changed his title to the Prince of Wei, and his state was therefore known as Northern Wei. At first,
13440-481: Was hidden by their written form. Often different compounds for the same concept were in circulation for some time before a winner emerged, and sometimes the final choice differed between countries. The proportion of vocabulary of Chinese origin thus tends to be greater in technical, abstract, or formal language. For example, in Japan, Sino-Japanese words account for about 35% of the words in entertainment magazines, over half
13560-611: Was honoured in sacrifices as was Earth and Heaven by the northern dynasties of non-Han origin. Kongzi was honored by the Murong Wei Former Yan Xianbei leader. Kongzi was honored by the Di ruler Fu Jian (337–385) . Kongzi was honored in sacrifices by the Northern Wei Xianbei dynasty. Kongzi was honored by Yuoba Si, the Mingyuan emperor. Han dynasty emperors, Shang dynasty ruler Bigan, Emperor Yao and Emperor Shun were honored by Yuoba Si,
13680-898: Was in turn overthrown by Erzhu Rong's nephew Erzhu Zhao and cousin Erzhu Shilong. However, Yuan Yue realized that the Erzhus then became firmly in control of Luoyang and that he would be unable to defeat them, and so returned to Liang in winter 530. In 532, with Northern Wei again in civil war after the general Gao Huan rose against the Erzhus, Emperor Wu against sent an army to escort Yuan Yue back to Northern Wei, and subsequently, Gao Huan welcomed Yuan Yue, but then decided against making Yuan Yue emperor. Subsequently, Emperor Xiaowu of Northern Wei, whom Gao made emperor, had Yuan Yue executed. With Northern Wei divided into Eastern Wei and Western Wei in light of Emperor Xiaowu's flight, Emperor Wu initially continued to send his forces to make minor territorial gains on
13800-407: Was infeasible. Importantly, mulberry land was inheritable because of the long-term investment and care mulberry orchards required. Households possessing slaves and plow oxen were entitled to substantially larger allocations. The open land allocations would be doubled or tripled in areas where the land was less fertile or the population sparse. Sale of these land grants was forbidden, although subleasing
13920-486: Was initially successful, the Yan troops withdrew after he became deathly ill, and he soon died on his way back. Shortly after Murong Bao ascended the throne, Tuoba Gui began an invasion on Later Yan. During the invasion, Murong Bao decided to concentrate his forces in his capital and major cities, allowing the Wei forces to quickly overrun the Central Plains . A disastrous defeat at the Battle of Baisi and infighting among
14040-497: Was killed in flight, and Chen's own army was destroyed, although Chen himself was able to flee back to Liang. In 530, Emperor Wu made another attempt to establish a vassal regime in Northern Wei by creating Yuan Yue the Prince of Wei, and commissioning Yuan Yue's uncle Fan Zun (范遵) with an army to escort Yuan Yue back to Northern Wei. Yuan Yue made some advances, particularly in light of the disturbance precipitated soon thereafter when Emperor Xiaozhuang ambushed and killed Erzhu Rong and
14160-594: Was married to Zhang Huan, a Han Chinese, according to the Book of Zhou (Zhoushu). His name is given as Zhang Xin in the Book of Northern Qi (Bei Qishu) and History of the Northern Dynasties (Beishi) which mention his marriage to a Xianbei princess of Wei. His personal name was changed due to a naming taboo on the emperor's name. He was the son of Zhang Qiong. When the Eastern Jin dynasty ended Northern Wei received
14280-537: Was permitted under some circumstances. Land allocations would be adjusted annually to account for changes in the composition of the household and its number of oxen. Another policy was the establishment of the three-elders system (sanzhang-zhi) in 486, which was designed to compile accurate population registers and to integrate village society into the state administration. In this system, five households were to make up one neighborhood (li), headed by one neighborhood elder (linzhang) while five neighborhoods were grouped into
14400-471: Was the last prince of the Xianbei -led Dai dynasty of China and ruled from 338 to 376 when Dai was conquered by the Former Qin dynasty . He was the son of Tuoba Yulü and the younger brother of Tuoba Yihuai , whom he succeeded in 338. In 340 he moved the capital to Shengle (盛樂) (near modern Horinger County , Inner Mongolia ). His grandson Tuoba Gui later founded the Northern Wei dynasty and accorded him
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